At one of my first Cons, I remember a sculptor/art vendor that had a beautiful 2 foot tall C'thulu statuette. Someone jokingly referred to it as a to-scale miniature. "You enter the chamber, and see this guy" >thunk<.

Since our group is relatively low-funded, and none of us were "the miniatures guy" in the day, I'm responsible for producing all of the monsters. 90% paper stand. I've got some generic beasties small-to-large, a slew of pc-types, hordes of kobolds, golblins, mixed undead, a few ogres, a pile of lizardfolk, and a box of bandits.

I'm technically the miniatures guy in our group, but that said, my collection isn't as... diverse as it could be, so usually the same models used to represent orcs also represent hobgoblins, evil humans, zombies, etc. Same goes for models for human characters except they're usually on our side. Large non-humanoid creatures are usually represented using bases of equivalent size.

Our non-generic NPCs tend to get a miniture all their own, but if I don't expand my collection soon, that may come to a halt >_>

The KenzerCo game "Fairy Meat" was presented as a 1:1 scale miniatures game. That meant that all of your odd lawn decorations and taxidermy experiments were acceptable game tokens. Before it was really a playable game, and just a gag in Knights of the Dinner Table, the first playthrough featured a squirrel lawn decoration as a giant monster.

LOL. Reading you guys makes me smile. Pretzel wolves. I never really thought about how blessed I am as a gamer that I never did any of that kind of stuff. Everybody I play with plays Warhammer also so we all have tons of figures. Our problem tends to be more that we have tons of orcs, skeletons and humans but no dwarves, hardly any monsters and gods save us if we need something mundane like a cart.

No dwarves, no halflings, a bunch of other odds and ends that become real annoying when you're trying to tell some kind of story.

I'll look into Blood Bowl though, if I'm not mistaken it's made the Warhammer company so we've already got lots of figures compatitble with the rules and an excuse to buy dwarves. Course now we mostly buy heros.

We've always used what was at hand. I've used 40K minis, Warhammer minis, I have used Iron Kingdoms minis as well.

Used to game with a group that assigned minis to players based on characters, the guy had a hell of a collection of pewter minis, all really nice.

Oh and the 40K mini incident was great, the barbarian used a Khorn Beserker, the mage used a Thousand Sons Librarian, the Paladin had an Ultramarine, and the thief...man, still laughing, used a dreadnaught, and never failed any rolls on stealth or pickpocket...stealthiest damn dreadnaught ever!

I think the strangest 'mini' ever used in my group was one GM who had a cupcake represent the BBEG and made a face on it out of frosting. It was supposed to represent a "FatBas**rd" and was a bit too funny to take seriously.

The rust monster and several other creatures were modeled after something that came out of a gumball machine. I suspect the first encounter went something like this.

Warrior: Haw haw haw!
DM: What's so funny?
Warrior: That? How am I supposed to take that seriously. Oooh, smite me, oh mighty smiter!
DM: <roll> It lashes out at your armor, which then corrodes all around you, falling to pieces at your feet!
Warrior: Hey! You'll pay for that! I proceed to cleave the monster in two!
DM: With what?
Mage: Um...
Warrior: With my sword, of course!
DM: You leave it with a nasty gash to the head...
Warrior: Take that!
DM: right before your sword collapses into rusty fragments, joining the ruins of your armor on the battlefield.
Warrior: ...
Mage: What were you expecting after it ate your armor?
Thief: Wait... this is why iron rations were listed on the equipment guide?

Vargouilles: the one thing that makes me bypass roleplaying. "Go to Panic. Do not pass Go, do not collect 2,000 gp." 'Panic' usually takes the form of either all the combat cheese I can muster, fleeing (a poor option against flyers) or making sure another player gets Kissed - and I'm not usually the backstabbing type; that's just a death I refuse to suffer. Doesn't matter if I'm playing some 1st level farmer's-son who has no legitimate way of knowing what a Vargouille is, he's more likely to suicide than let himself become a vargouille. I don't like those things.

I actually have one of the original gumball toys the Bullette was based on. Got it when I was real little from the Doctor's office Goody Bowl, years before I'd ever even heard of D&D. Shocked me to see it in the Monster Manual one day.

My best mini story is when a guy who is SUPER SERIOUS about minis joined the game... and found out we were using cute little plastic animals, a green resin Buddha, a guitar pick with a skull on it, and an MLP figure to represent the party members. He damn near had an aneurysm. He hated the pony most of all.

One time I got it into my head to bring my collection of legos to the table while we were making our characters. One of the guys noticed that one of the heads had a mustache that "looked exactly like Hitler". He then based his Ranger around being a Evil Xenophobe that tried to assimilate the other party members to the human race.

Story time today is about internet memes in your games! Tell about a time you managed to use a meme without breaking character.

Raxon has a little something. Remember the diet coke and mentos thing? Well, he thinks this is his most impressive trick. He'll take a box of mentos and flip one from a tube into his hand. "Now you see it." He'll close his hand and open it. His hand is empty. "Now you don't." He has such fun with making criminals nervous with it. Alwo, 'porting mentos into the diet coke bottles at the supermarket.

The SUPER SERIOUS guy I mentioned above also plays a SUPER SERIOUS character. Big surprise, right? Well, as DM I had a rather whimsical and NPC hanging out with the party who filled this guy's character with rage. While staying in character, I absolutely threw "Why so serious?" and "U mad?" into their interactions once or twice.

Don't know if it's necessarily a meme, but in my most recent campaign, d20 modern set on a college campus, I've repeatedly referenced Game Grumps."I appreciate it... but look at what we're dealing with here!" became really popular when the characters made their first supernatural encounter with a ghost haunting the English building.

I had one that the PCs invoked.
They seiged the BBEG's lair and got to his lab. The BBEG had already escaped, but left an explosive chemical bomb with a timer. A recorded illusion of the BBEG was left to give a farewell to the PCs, all "Blofeld" style.

Rogue: "The evil guy left us a message." *activates illusion*Cleric: "Main screen turn on!"GM: "You touch the disk and an illusion of the lich appears."Party in Unison: "It's you!"GM: (trying not to laugh) "How are you gentleman? All your base are belong to explode."Rogue: "What you say?!"GM: "You have no chance to survive, make your time. ...Hahaha."Sorcerer: "I think using my Teleport scroll is in order."Cleric: "You know what you are doing, move every PC!"

Actually, Raxon, teleporting mentos into closed diet coke bottles wouldn't have any effect. The mento-diet coke reaction wouldn't work while the drink was still pressurized. You'd just have mentos inside coke bottles unless someone opened them BEFORE the coating on the outside of the mint dissolved. And it's the delicate, complex structure of the coating that causes the reaction, so it would lose its explosiveness very quickly.

I am aware, but there's no reason why there can't be a triggered fuse so that it waits until you open it to release a barrier around the mentos. We are talking about an epic level bard/wizard with lots of free time.

Oddly enough, I didn't retire Raxon from gaming because he's OP. For his level, he is pretty badly underpowered. No, he was retired from games because he's just too broken and unbalanced. And the fact that he is incredibly irritating to everyone who is not a party member.

I might bring him back at low level for a campaign, though. Could be fun.

It would be pretty cool to have Raxon pioneer the 8th level bard spells. Among them being the ability to lend your musical or oratory skills to fellow performers, allowing you to take a novice on stage, and he will instantly know the words and how to sing it right, for the duration of the performance.

I have detailed his teleport spell. It is a bard spell that tricks the universe into moving you to where you want to go.

Eh, memes have always been good for that. Imagine what Casablanca would have become if the internet had been around back then: a movie so heavily referenced that a new viewer would find most of it highly familiar already. But I repeat myself, as Mark Twain put it.

In DnD, creatures have a "Size category" representing exactly how big they are.
the size categories go, from biggest to smallest:
Colossal
Gargantuan
Huge
Large
Medium (the size of an adult human)
Small
Tiny
Diminutive
Fine
Each category is around twice as long/tall as the one before.

The other thing to consider from that list is that, in 4th edition, starting with Medium at 1x1 square in size (where 1 square is roughly 5 feet to a side), each category larger is +1 square per size (Large == 2x2, Huge == 3x3, etc).

Going down works a little differently. A small creature still takes up 1x1 and a Tiny creature takes up the equivalent of .5 x .5 (meaning 4 tiny creatures can fit in 1 square).

Tiny Creatures can also move into the same square as larger creatures, and often have to in order to make attacks (many times, their melee range is "0").

I don't recall 4th edition having a Diminutive or Fine category, but I imagine it would roughly scale the same way down.

Okay now that I've got over my headache.
Poll time:
How do you approach battles when you know you will lose?
CHARRRGE!
Run Away!
Think then strike!
He's not my enemy, if he's my friend.
Can't move, too scared.
Oh well. can't stop him, might as well give up.
Me: Exit stage left

If I'm playing a warrior type character (personality, not class), I charge in anyway.
If I'm playing a strategist, I plan my way out.
If I'm playing a cutesy character, I diplomance my way out.

One of my characters actually inspired a Mock Magic the Gathering card:

"Adorable little girl
cost: 5 colorless, three red, three white, three green
1/1
Abilities:
If Adorable Little Girl is declared a defender, flip a coin. If heads, take control of the attacking monster. If tails, negate the attack. If the coin lands on its edge, destroy this card.
If Adorable Little Girl attacks and is blocked, do not calculate battle damage, and tap the blocking creature. That creature does not untap as normal during the controller's next untap phase."

Sorry about this, but I'm the Magic equivalent of a Grammar Nazi. This will only hurt for a second...

Adorable Little Girl 5RRRGGGWWW
Creature — Human
Whenever Adorable Little Girl blocks a creature, flip a coin. If the coin comes up heads, gain control of that creature. If the coin comes up tails, remove that creature from combat. Otherwise, destroy Adorable Little Girl.
Whenever Adorable Little Girl becomes blocked, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by it this turn and tap each creature blocking it. Those creatures don't untap during their controller's next untap step.
1/1

Usually, I charge, then run away if I start actually losing. Sometimes I'm wrong and we win.

...I try to make sure my characters have ways of running away. Invisibility, Dimension Door, flight, very large stealth scores, that sort of thing. My current character has all four. It makes him appear very brave!

Like the others, varies by character, but I play orcs like Klingons, & pretty much WAAAGH my way to death and/or glory. Hobgoblins - my favorite race, aside from alignment complications - tend to use Diplomacy checks when they can't win. The pixie warlock would turn invisible & start guerilla warfare. Really, that's my favorite option - if I can't win in a stand-up fight, even the odds. Scouts are my favorite class for that - wilderness/rogue-type skillmonkey + speed boost with Skirmish? Flawless victory. Problem is gettimg used to a 'smack it, cast a spell, or trudge 20 feet' cleric - as much as I like being a gish, sometimes I prefer mobility.

I actually did the whole "idea of scale" thing in the campaign I started in these comments (still ongoing, just on the Pony Tales forum).

Basically, the party went and met the former mount/pet/companion of a saint, who was being taken care of by the priests of a temple (as well as guarding the relic of the temple, his earthly remains), as they were scouring the temple of invading saboteur cultists. It was a "Dire Liger".

Now, that probably doesn't sound too threatening, does it? Well, for a proper context, one needs two pictures to get a real idea of scale of this creature.

Here's a scale picture of a "dire bear", as depicted in the D&D monster manual:Dire Bear

And here is a picture of a real-life Liger, which is a feline cross-breed of lion/tiger:Liger

My point is that, given a lack of cues, many people default to assume no difference between them and the person with whom they're communicating. In the average conversation under these conditions, gender matters as much as dominant hand until it comes time to use a pronoun. How important is that pronoun? Less important than the change in reaction we tend to get when people realize that we are female. It shouldn't be, but that's still a struggle I wish I could avoid more often.

I don't know if you're still checking on this, GrayGriffin, but let me see if I understand your most recent points. The approach your recommend would avoid mistake based on assumption. You have cause to prefer that people don't make assumptions about you.

If these statements are an accurate reflection, I agree. If I'm still missing the point, I apologize.

My last campaign was ultra low budget - we didn't use miniatures at all. The bad guys were little squares of paper with stuff written on them to distinguish them, and the PCs were random chess pieces, except for me. I was a penny. Lol

I've been in very very few games that used minis for combat. For the most part, all of my fighting has been in fudge-space.

You know, that kinda fuzzy quantum superposition of possible combat scenarios, where things like positioning and such _matter_, but kinda get determined on the fly based on existing party order and location description. Most of the groups I've been in for the past decade or so treat any scenario where the GM pulls out _anything_ to lay out enemy arrangement as an indication that the bad guys are using tactics, which means they're probably smart enough to talk to. You can bribe surprisingly large numbers of opponents for a fraction of the money it costs to raise a single fighter. If you don't have the money to blow on big bribes/raises, you either have some other point in common to work out an agreement from or should surrender/run the hell away.

The downside to this is that I haven't seen a good evenly-matched combat in about a decade.

Oh, yes. That limbo is where all my games happen. Basically the only useful information the group bothers to keep track of is whether or not any given character is in melee range with the enemy.
Ranged attacks are all basically a matter of choosing your target and rolling to hit, with the only possible cover option being the aforementioned characters in melee combat with the target.

My best mini story was a time I was playing a one shot campaign with a few friends of mine (me as a player) We were heading into this room because we knew there was a fight there and suddenly our DM drops a Colossal Red Dragon mini at us (while were at first level) we were saying things like "really?" and "oh come on!" After what seemed like ages fighting the thing however we found out the darned thing was an illusion we all looked our DM and with a face like: "You sonova-" He merely gave us a trollish smile continuing the adventure.